


Composition

by RosiePaw



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-09-19 01:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9412583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosiePaw/pseuds/RosiePaw
Summary: Sherlock has a proposition for Eurus.  She takes it in a direction he didn't expect.  But then, heisthe least intelligent of the three Holmes siblings.





	

It suited his purposes that his parents hadn’t accompanied him this time.  He wanted to try something new, and there was a better chance of it working without an audience.  Well, without an audience physically present.  Eurus would always be the girl who couldn’t tell which one was pain, who couldn’t tell laughing from screaming.  She might wish him no harm, she might even wish him well, but she had no intuitive way to tell the difference and might never learn to do so intellectually.

There would be no more unsupervised visits for Eurus, for everyone’s good.  Including her own.

But he thought she’d enjoy his proposition, might go along with it despite the monitoring.  He spent the helicopter ride with his fingers itching for the feel of violin and bow.  Soon, he told them, soon.

It had started with Rosamund’s birthday party.  No, before that.  He’d played for Rosamund before that, when John brought her to visit or left her with Mrs Hudson to mind.  After all, she needed exposure to something other than mindless pop.  She was a surprisingly good audience, staring at the motions of his arms and hands as he played, laughing and kicking when he finished a piece.

Mrs Hudson was of the opinion that Rosamund was interested only in the motions rather than the music, which missed the point entirely.  Music wasn’t just a noise that came out of nowhere.  It was tied to motion – playing an instrument, singing, dancing.  Once you understood that, you could hear the motion in the music even when it was recorded.  Certainly a former exotic dancer ought to realize this?    

Or was Mrs Hudson, as John might put it, “having him on”?

Knowing Rosamund would be inundated with gifts of toys on her birthday, he’d presented her instead with something intangible: a violin piece he’d composed.  He’d tried to capture her personality: intelligent, curious, explorative, bubbling with laughter.  John had wiped his eyes and hugged Sherlock afterwards, so perhaps he’d succeeded.

But as he played Rosamund’s theme, he kept hearing another in his mind.  Lower in pitch, steady, almost plodding at times but punctuated by occasional unexpected runs and percussive notes.  It was John, of course, and in his mind Sherlock could hear how the two wound together.  He’d tried recording himself playing John’s theme and then playing Rosamund’s theme along with the recording, but this was unsatisfactory, didn’t allow for the give and take of two live players.

Might Eurus be interested?  There was only one way to find out.

Mindful of past errors, he’d checked with John before setting forth.  Eurus already knew of Rosamund’s existence but even hearing, let alone playing, this music would give her more information about Rosamund as a person.  What she might do with this information was anyone’s guess.  What she _could_ do with it included unacceptable possibilities.

John had listened, serious, and then said, “You wouldn’t even be asking me this if you thought there was any significant possibility of harm to Rosie that we couldn’t protect her against.”

“John, we both know there have been times in the past...”

“I don’t mean past-you.  I mean you now.  You and me now, with all we’ve learned.  Sherlock, if you thought there was any real chance of this harming Rosie, you wouldn’t have ever mentioned it.”

Even remembering the grave look on John’s face as he said this made Sherlock’s throat feel ticklish.

***

Eurus’ cell was as stark as ever.  Their parents had been somewhat distressed, but as far as anyone could tell, Eurus had no desire to have it changed.  Perhaps she considered colour in the same light as her excursions to the outside world: something one indulged in occasionally, out of necessity or for fun, but not a characteristic of _home_.  Whatever home meant to Eurus.

There had been questions as to the wisdom of returning Eurus to Sherrinford but in the end, where else were they to put her?  Killing her or physically maiming her so that she’d be incapable of escaping were right out.  Both their parents and Sherlock had made that clear.

But it had been John who pointed out the obvious.  “She could have left Sherrinford at any time, gone anywhere in the world and remained undetected for as long as she wished.  Instead she left long enough to get Sherlock’s attention, then returned to wait for him.  As long as Sherlock keeps coming to visit, why is she going to leave?”

Mycroft had looked down his nose.  “None of us have a clear understanding of Eurus’ motivations, least of all _goldfish_ like...”

“Brother mine,” interrupted Sherlock, “Considering your repeated and, for some parties, _fatal_ mistakes in your handling of Eurus...”

“She’s saved Sherlock’s life twice.”

They both looked at John.

“Once when he was going to shoot himself at Sherrinford and once when _you_ ” – glaring at Mycroft – “were going to send him off to be killed.  Except she triggered the Moriarty broadcast, so you decided you still had a use for him after all.  She’s like the little girl on the plane.”

She wasn’t “like.”  Eurus had _been_ the little girl on the plane.  But Sherlock had never told John that.

“Everyone around her is so much less intelligent that they might as well be asleep.  There’s _one_ person who’s both reasonably intelligent...”

Mycroft drew himself up ever so slightly.

“... _and_ knows enough about human emotions that they might be able to explain them to her.  Which leaves you out, Mycroft.  She wants to talk to Sherlock.”

“ _With_ me,” corrected Sherlock.  “She wants to talk with me – and I with her.”

***

So here he was in front of her cell once again, standing where he’d stood many times before.  She was sitting with her back to him today.  This didn’t mean she didn’t want to see him.  It certainly didn’t mean she didn’t know he was there.

He took the bow from its case, rosined it, picked up the violin, checked the tuning, made minute adjustments.  He began to play Rosamund’s theme.

Eurus tilted her head slightly.

It was only when he segued into John’s theme, however, that she rose and picked up her own violin.  They played through John’s theme together once.  Then Sherlock returned to Rosamund’s theme, as Eurus continued with John’s – for awhile, anyway, because after a bit they started trading back and forth, not only playing the interlocking themes but playing _with_ them, exploring them, making up variations, trying to top each other.

It was breathless, exhilarating.  It was _fun_.  John couldn’t have shared this himself, but he might understand it.  Mycroft?  Sherlock doubted it.

As if on cue, Eurus returned to John’s theme in its basic form.  But when Sherlock began to play Rosamund’s, she frowned slightly, played a discordant trill.  Sherlock attempted John’s theme as a duet.  Another discordant trill from Eurus.

Not John himself, then.  Something to do with John, but not Rosamund.  Ah.  Sherlock began John and Mary’s wedding waltz.

Eurus took her violin off her shoulder and glared.  Then she put the violin back and played "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman," without ornamentation.  Very slowly.

He couldn’t keep from smiling.  “I already know I’m not the intelligent one in this room, sister.”

She stared at him a moment in silence, then began to play again.  At first he thought it was another variation on Rosamund’s theme, but no.  There was intelligence and curiosity here, but no bubbling laughter.  Instead, the music soared into runs of notes that sparkled like crystals of high-quality cocaine before falling away into almost monotone depths.  Again, it soared, seemed to stumble, then fell, and each time it fell, there was nothing that promised it would rise again.  Each fall was potentially final.

Sherlock lifted his violin back into position.  When the music next soared and stumbled, he was ready for it.  The opening notes of John’s theme slid into the brief moment between stumble and fall, and the fall... changed.  Was somehow tempered.  It sank as low as before but suddenly, there was a whisper of promise.

They both stopped playing.

When they resumed, it was Eurus who took John’s theme, Sherlock who played the new one.  The soaring runs were as exhilarating as a good case, an eight, a nine, even a rare ten.  In Eurus’ hands, John’s theme framed these moments of brilliance, set them off, but also brought them back down more gently, easing the stumbles.  When the new theme sank into the depths, John’s theme softened its despair, led it back upwards.

There were moments of discord, each theme striking precisely the wrong notes to mesh with the other, but these were always resolved.  The music woven by the two themes grew ever richer.  Nor did it ever end.  It simply grew softer and softer, until there was no music but only the two violinists, looking into each other’s eyes.

Sherlock spoke almost as softly.  “Relationship advice, sister?”  Eurus shrugged, laid her violin and bow down, turned away.  Their conversation was over.  The matter was in his hands now.

He used the helicopter ride home to consider what he might do with it.  There was a time for music – and a time for motion.

**Author's Note:**

> "Ah! vous dirai-je, maman" - Better known to English-speakers as "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." Arranged by Mozart under its original name.


End file.
